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22
practically no summer, and the amount of sunshine
must have been considerably below the general
average. The infantile mortality rate for London as
a whole was 69 and for England and Wales as a whole
75. It is interesting to note that last year our rate
was 3 per thousand above that for London as a whole,
while this year again we are exactly 3 per thousand
above the average for London. Out of 29 London
Boroughs (including the City), for which I have been
able to obtain the infantile mortality rate, Fulham
stands fourteenth, having an equal rate with Hammersmith
and Poplar. In my report for last year I
pointed out that certain populous working-class
boroughs, particularly in the East End, had lower
infantile mortality rates than Fulham, and amongst
them I mentioned Deptford, Poplar, Stepney, Greenwich,
Battersea and Woolwich. This year our rate is
better than any of the above with the exception of
Battersea and Woolwich, and in these latter cases the
rates have risen in both those boroughs considerably
more than they have done in Fulham. Whereas our
rate rose this year by 8 per thousand, the Battersea
rate has risen by 13 and Woolwich by 22 per thousand.
There is therefore some satisfaction in that although
our rate has risen it has not risen in the same proportion
as has the rate in many other London Boroughs.
The causes of deaths of infants during 1924 are set
out in Table No. 111, and classified according to ward
and age. Again, I must point out the large number
of deaths of infants, viz., 50, which occurred as a
result of premature birth. In my last Annual Report
I pointed out that we might reasonably hope to prevent
a considerable amount of this mortality when we were
able to get a larger proportion of our mothers to
attend the ante-natal clinics, or to attend their own
general practitioners regularly during the ante-natal
period. This is a purely educational matter and everything
is being done by the Health Visitors and at the
Infant Welfare Centres to inculcate the principles of
ante-natal care. It will not be out of place to mention,
therefore, that early in 1925 the Borough Council came
to an arrangement with the voluntary infant welfare